The Shattering of the Soul

The Shattering of the Soul

Recorded by Janja Bec
Drawings by Emir Dragulj

The Making of this Book
Over a period of three months, from the beginning of November 1995 to the end of January 1996, in three refugee camps in Slovenia - in Celje, Maribor and Ptuj - I talked to about one hundred refugee women who had lost members of their immediate family (children, grandchildren, husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers) as victims of war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the spring and summer of 1992 and in July 1995.

The women come from three regions. The first is Kotor Varo, the villages of Orahova, Cejvani, Vrbanjci, Vecici, Grabovci, Hanifici. The second is Kljuc, Sanski Most, Prijedor, the villages of Prhovo, Gornji Bi1jani, Hrustovo, jugovci, Velagici, Pudin Han, Bicani, Trnopolje, Ljulbija. The third is Srebrenica and Zepa, the villages of Milacevci, Kruev Dol, Potocari.

I tape-recorded the stories of forty women in the refugee camps and by the end of June 1996 had transcribed ten, without any changes.

In the summer of 1996 Emir Dragulj started working on the drawings for this book.

The research for this book was made possible by Civic Link Human Rights Center of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the Olof Palme Institute of Stockholm, Sweden.